blogging new ideas in science, business, learning
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Vaccines have been the most successful tool in public health for over 150 years. But up to now they have been generic: each one is raised and designed against a specific disease-such as rabies, smallpox and more recently malaria. A new class of vaccine changes that logic entirely. These are individualised neoantigen vaccines, built from … Continue reading Intismeran:First successful Phase 3 trial…
Remember the waves of fury and anger that swept over certain sections of the population when the London ULEZ zone was introduced.? Among many acts of lawlessness, cameras and signs were smashed and street calming flower planters torn up, all to a cascade of spittle-flecked rage online and in certain popular news outlets. For those … Continue reading ULEZ success suggests progress works-sometimes →
It’s a funny thing to be a progressive. We ‘re always prey to the Law of Unintended Consequences. For example, we rack our brains to replace all those nasty energy intensive incandescent bulbs with lovely low energy LEDs . And suddenly there’s a new problem. Is the new light from the LEDs missing something the … Continue reading Are you missing out on red light? A lightbulb moment for Graham…
As a party of academics led by world renowned palaeontologist Steve Brusatte crossed the remote landscape of Scotland, one of their number was attacked by an angry dinosaur. The victim, an eminent mathematician of Edinburgh University, had got ahead of the main party, Alone and isolated, he was an easy target as the animal swooped, … Continue reading The day Steve Brusatte’s companion was attacked…
A few short weeks ago we published a sort piece on Italian Cocktails in which we praised the Aperol Spritz (LSS 15 5 26) Not only were we a bit out of date, but all our efforts to bring you the world of cocktails are at once superseded by this excellent piece by those redoubtable … Continue reading Friday Night: The Hugo Spritz- and this is how to write a real cocktail story →
a few examples from this week’s news Is Birth order Destiny? We’ve long been intrigued by the thought that your birth order-whether you’re a sibling or an older child, older brother, younger sister,etc-affects your personality and life chances. Latest twist in the saga is this piece about disease from the Independent: Study suggests first-born children … Continue reading Round up Birth order,…
Over the years we’ve enjoyed bringing you good‑news cancer stories. Only a fraction of what’s available in the wider media, of course, but we try to showcase the ones that matter. And we think you will agree, gentle readers, that the overall direction of travel has been encouraging. Immunotherapy, CAR‑T, genomic sequencing — these are … Continue reading Incurable cancers-don’t pick and choose your…
Last week, with the help of our doughty researchers, we published a small piece describing how Artificial Intelligence is being employed to design new generations of bacteriophages, some of which might be used to target antibiotic‑resistant bacteria (LSS 8.8.26). Hopeful, certainly — but intelligent readers will ask the old question: what’s the chance any of … Continue reading More good news on…
Ever attentive to our readers’ clamour for more good news on antibiotic resistance we bear yet another story on the synthesis of Artificial Intelligence with the frontiers of cellular biology to produce yet another remarkable advance. Yet we think, gentle readers, that this story may have far deeper significance for the evolution of life on … Continue reading AI designed Bacteriophages: Synthetic…
In Cocktail homage to the United States, until recently the greatest nation on the planet, we have chosen the Manhattan. That ne plus ultra of the 1920s when America set out to rule the world through Modernity and Finance: and the island of Manhattan was the very centre of that rule. No, not Rhapsody in … Continue reading Cocktails from America: The Manhattan →
